June 23, 2011

Imagine that you’re an electronics retailer and a customer asks you where the chips in your line of smart phones comes from. Or you’re a clothier, and customers want to know who supplied the wool for the suits you are selling. Would you be lost for an answer?

June 15, 2011

As 2010 drew to a close, the global nuclear power industry was on an upswing. With memories of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island accidents fading, Sweden and Germany reversed plans to shutter their nuclear power plants early. Meanwhile Finland and France were building Europe’s first new nuke plants in over two decades and world-wide, some 400 more were on the drawing board.

June 8, 2011

For those of us that remember the 1970s, a defining event of the era was the energy crisis, which saw significant hikes in the price of oil and many questioning the security of existing energy supplies. The shock triggered a huge investment in alternative energy sources, most notably nuclear. Meanwhile Denmark started developing high efficiency wind turbines which are still setting the standard today. The crisis also drove the search for, and exploitation of, previously uneconomic sources of oil such as offshore deepwater fields and oil sands.

June 1, 2011

With continuing concern over the stuttering recovery of the once mighty U.S. economy, and much media comment about an apparently unstoppable Asian and Latin American boom, you may think it’s only grim tidings for Canada and North America.

Oil Sands Question and Response (OSQAR) is a blog created by Suncor Energy to support constructive dialogue about the oil sands. In our weekly posts, we talk about the energy industry, environmental impact, tailings management and reclamation, water management and the social and economic implications of oil sands development.

Our oil sands operations are near Fort McMurray, Alberta, where we recover bitumen from oil sands through mining and in situ operations. The bitumen from both operations is then upgraded to refinery-ready feedstock and diesel fuel. More about the where and the what of the oil sands can be found on our oil sands resource page.